For the sustainable home

Sustainability in roofing means the end of using products made from virgin material. Instead, the industry is moving to transferring existing waste into useable products that will continually be reprocessed and diverted from landfill sites. There are now products that have a high percentage of recycled content, some with life-long warranties.

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Better indoor air starts with choice of materials

As houses have become better built in recent years, with superior envelopes that are tighter against air leaks, indoor air quality has become more of a concern.

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Heritage home morphs to open modern

The renewal of this 125-year old small Victorian home presented a typical challenge in Toronto – altering and updating the existing residential urban fabric while preserving the historic character of heritage neighbourhoods.

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Renovated 50s home takes low-tech green approach

This developer-built bungalow – an ersatz version of the classic West Coast post and beam style house – dates from 1958. Typically a house of this age and in this condition would be torn down for redevelopment. Instead, the house has been renovated and extended, and now acknowledges its true heritage while retaining economy of the developer’s original construction materials and methods..

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Strategies for Wireless Systems

Minimizing the energy consumption for lighting can only be achieved when the lighting is controlled in an efficient manner. The better this goal is achieved, the greater the energy savings.

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Green agenda helps the chronically ill

The Darling Home for Kids provides high quality respite and palliative care services for families with children who are medically fragile and technology dependent, many of whom suffer from progressive or terminal illnesses. The building sits amid 31 hectares of woodland, among the rolling hills of the Niagara escarpment.

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Restored heritage warehouse targets LEED-Gold certification

The Salt Building is centrally located in Vancouver’s new Southeast False Creek [SEFC] sustainable neighbourhood. Dating from the 1930s, it is the only remaining structure in the first phase of SEFC that connects directly back to False Creek’s rich industrial past of sawmills, shipbuilding, and steel fabrication.

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Millennium Water, Vancouver

Reflections on the Promise, Process and Performance of a prototype sustainable community

With a long and checkered history spanning more than a decade, several municipal elections and  multiple  about-turns in design direction, the development of Vancouver’s South East False Creek [SEFC] sustainable neighbourhood, has attracted more controversy than any other planning initiative since Expo ’86.

JIM TAGGART

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The least expensive and essential first step to saving energy is to increase thermal resistance of the building envelope with insulation. Manufacturers provide a variety of insulation types and applications, each having varying environmental trade-offs.

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Partial subterranean infill animates historic district

The expansion of the Charlesbourg Public Library, in the heart of the centrally located Trait-Carré historic district of Quebec City, included many challenges, among them how to address the following questions:
• How could  the new library become a vehicle and a support for memories associated with the site
while at the same time meeting all present and future needs ?

• How could the new plan and public spaces contribute to the creation of an animated urban environment?

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